Friday, August 5, 2011

Friday TV Comments From Pocono

The TV coverage from Pocono begins on Friday at noon ET with SPEED watching the Sprint Cup Series teams practice. An earlier 10AM practice for the Camping World Trucks will air on a delay at 2PM ET.

Rick Allen will be leading the SPEED TV team up in the booth while John Roberts anchors ground-level. Kyle Petty and Larry McReynolds will be handling the Cup coverage while Phil Parsons and Micheal Waltrip cover the trucks.

There is a lot going on in the sport right now. Carl Edwards re-signed with Roush on Thursday so reporters will be watching to see what domino is next to fall in the driver silly season. Brad Keselowski is nursing two banged-up feet after a testing crash at Road Atlanta. Expect updates on whether he can go in the race or not.

Nashville Superspeedway bowed out this week of hosting any NASCAR races in 2012, so that leaves a couple of Nationwide Series dates up in the air. Fan suggestions have ranged from Rockingham to Lucas Oil Raceway in Indy, so it will be interesting to see if NASCAR addresses that situation.

Speaking of the Nationwide Series, ESPN is just televising the race from Iowa on Saturday, no practice or qualifying. Marty Reid will call the action but joining him in the booth is a very interesting combination. Ricky Craven and Kenny Schrader will be the analysts. ESPN may very well be using this telecast to audition Schrader for more spins in the TV booth.

In the meantime, Craven has come of age and is just waiting for more opportunities to move into higher-profile NASCAR programming on ESPN. It would be wonderful since ESPN split Marty Reid off onto the Nationwide Series if the network provided him Craven and Schrader as analysts down the stretch.

Over the past four seasons, one of ESPN's biggest issues has been using Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree endlessly as analysts on practice, qualifying and races in both the NNS and Cup Series. Its time to let the NNS series have it's own personalities in the TV booth.

As we go through Friday from Pocono, this post will serve to host your TV-related comments. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for stopping by, hope the weather stays nice and Friday at Pocono is good TV.

I hope somebody at espn finally saw the light and has permanently removed RW from the booth dued to ethical, integrity, and conflict of interest reasons. What happened last week should have finally opened somebody's eyes! MC

I welcome the addition of Ricky and Kenny to the NNW series, I agree that NNW NEEDS it own identity! I just hope Marty can keep up. Anytime we UN wallace and UN waltrip the telecast its a better more credible show. I am really surprised that ESPN is making changes that are positive.

I think Craven has done a superb job in the booth so far. I was disappointed last week in his analysis of the Steven Wallace crash since it seems Rusty's presence in the booth is so oppressive they can't really say what's going on. I don't think that will happen with Schrader in the booth.

Kenny Shrader and Craven should be an excellent pairing ...leaves Marty to call the race, for which he is capable and qualified ...now if production values (i.e. - finish line coverage) continue to improve, this should be an interesting and entertaining race to watch

Schrader will be a welcome addition! Maybe ESPN could swap"Hot Rod" Wallace for Tim Brewer.After hearing Brewer's colorfulobservation of Childress vsBusch, I think he could add somereal un-PC commentary to the action. After all, no one paysany attention to the spring rubber& brake bias redundantcy.

@DMO. Yeah, I heard Kyle's take on Danica. I agree that she shouldn't be looking at any Cup events next year. She doesn't have the experience yet. Though, I'm impressed how much she's learned in a part time schedule.

I thought it got a bit awkward when Juan Pablo was brought up for a comparison. Funnier still when Kyle said he really didn't know what Danica had done in open wheel since he didn't watch it.

Glad to have Kenny in the booth. First Allen Bestwick and now Kenny. Christmas has come early! :-)

I don't think Marsha's question got answered. Marsha-Rusty Wallace is a minority owner of the Iowa Speedway, so he has other responsibilities this weekend. I live 30 minutes from the track and have seen my share of Rusty Wallace on the local news.

My third time to try and get my comments posted. Of course, I am NOT a Carl Edwards fan. How can ESPN hire him to be a commentater when he has had run ins with so many other drivers?? Oh, yes, that is Harvick driving,I remember the time I went into his garage and put a choke hold on him; and Junior?? I did not like him doing a victory lap so I went back on the track and hit his car. Oh, forget about what I did to Brad, nobody cares that I flipped him. I am Carl, just got a new talking gig, forget about all that other stuff.